Inside Health

VITAL SIGNS: THERAPIES

VITAL SIGNS: THERAPIES; Cancer Regimen Found Safe in Pregnancy

By ANNE EISENBERG

Published: March 16, 1999

Pregnant women diagnosed with breast cancer once felt they had to choose either the toxic doses of chemotherapy or a healthy baby, but never both.

Now they may be able to use a standard chemotherapy to treat their malignancies, and still look forward to safe deliveries and healthy infants, a recent study published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology has found.

''Contrary to popular belief,'' said Dr. Richard Theriault, one of the authors of the study, ''we've found that chemotherapy can be used in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy with minimal or no complications of labor or delivery.''

The eight-year program being undertaken at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is unusual, experts say. It monitors 24 patients given identical chemotherapy from prenatal care to childbirth to the years after.

''This study gives us more than hope,'' said Dr. Jeanne Petrek, surgical director of the Lauder Breast Cancer Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan.

While the incidence of breast cancer among pregnant women is about 1 in 3,000, experts expect the number to rise as more women become pregnant later in life, when breast cancer is more common.

None received radiation and none had chemotherapy during the first trimester, when the limbs and organs of the fetus form. All were advised to avoid breast-feeding.

Specialized prenatal care was an important component in the study: Patients worked throughout with obstetricians experienced in monitoring high-risk pregnancies. Such extensive, specialized monitoring is not available to all women, Dr. Petrek pointed out.

Dr. Theriault is concerned about the future health of the children. ''Right now,'' he said, ''they appear normal. I expect they will continue normal. But we don't know for sure.'' The children's median age is 4.5 years. ANNE EISENBERG